Generation-xtrem (the first day)
by Novaura
Summary: Athena Madoc suffers the change while with her grandmother.


  
Frederica Athena Madoc sat at the dinning room table. A cup of coffee in one hand; a pencil in the other. Her first day of coming back to school and she already had homework! Last year it was so easy. You add one plus one you get two. That was all. Now she had to memorize equations, theories, formulas, and even element tables.   
  
That wasn't her problem though. Her photographic memory took care of that. She had to leave her family and friends to take these new and improved advanced classes! She missed them all so much it hurt. She was just glad her sister had come to visit. The advanced classes started in July instead of September. Her sister was visiting her the last few days of her summer, and helped their grandmother (who Athena was currently living with) while she was away at school. This worked fine for the rest of the family but not Athena who ached to see a familiar face in this strange land.   
  
She tugged a whisp of her burnt sienna hair behind her ear. "If the advanced classes don't fry my brain the loneliness will," she sighed. The way things always worked out was that she would come home to an empty house while her sister went with her grandmother to some stores and what not. She still hasn't spoken to her except for hello and goodnight.   
  
Athena took a sip of her mocha-chino, and tried to concentrate on her work. Her efforts however were in vain. Athena began to get hot. Her gut felt like it was balling up inside. Whether it was PMS or whether it was because this was her seventh cup of mocha-chino what happened next was hard to imagine. The book in front of her, which she had been staring so intently at, burst into flames.   
  
Athena, to her surprise, didn't jump up and scream. Despite her enormous fear of fire. Instead she sat there watching the glorious dancing of the blaze as if it were meant to console her. That was until a large splash of water interrupted the show. She looked up. Her grandmother stood over her holding a dewy bucket. Her sister snickering not far behind.  
  
"What on God's great earth are you doing?" She exclaimed slamming the bucket onto the table. As if she wasn't hot enough she could already feel her face turning red. "Do you know how much these things cost?" She asked again grabbing up the book and waving it's charred remains in the air. Athena's eyes began to water. She hated it when people got mad at her.   
  
"Yes mam," she mumbled looking to the floor.  
  
"Don't you 'Yes mam' me! You tell me how I'm supposed to pay for this!" Athena looked at the book then at her grandmother. Just then the old woman's face softened and Mystery stopped laughing. In the silence Athena could hear small short sizzles.  
  
"What?" she asked when her grandmother rushed from the room. Mystery stood her mouth open and pulled out her pocket mirror. Athena gawked at her velvet face, her tears evaporating before they could hit her cheeks.  
  
***  
  
Mystery snickered at her sister as she fumbled over her words.   
  
"What a dope" she thought to herself." she really shouldn't be THAT embarrassed"   
grandma came in with the old mercury thermometer the two sisters had seen countless times before.   
  
"Now Athena," grandma scolded " You should really take better care of yourself. You look flushed…probably too many moca-whata-ma-call-it …oh that coffee shit."  
  
"Mocha-chino, Granny"  
  
"I don't care what you call it! in my day we didn't drink mocha-whatever. Coffee was coffee…those were the good old days…children shouldn't drink that nonsense. It'll stunt your growth!"  
Athena rolled her eyes and opened her mouth so that her grandmother could take her temperature. She placed the cool glass cylinder under her tongue and her mouth instantly filled with the bitter metallic twang of mercury.  
  
"GOD!" Athena shouted as she spit out the foul liquid.  
  
"HEAVENS CHILD!!" granny yelled . automatically she placed her hand on her grand-daughters forehead, and instantly jerked it away in pain.  
  
"OH MY GAWD!!!" Mystery screamed running up to her grandmother.  
  
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!?!?!" mystery turned on her sister. Athena began to hyperventilate uncontrollably. she reached for her faithful brown paper bag but incinerated leaving nothing but ashes . a tear sizzled on her cheek and with a high pitched shriek she ran out the screen door, which melted. mystery followed her sister. Athena disappeared around the corner of the house. mystery easily found her sister's trail by following the singed grass and the faint smell of smoke. she kicked into high gear and sped around the corner nearly tripping over her sister who was curled up into a fetal position on the ground.  
  
"I didn't mean to " Athena whimpered.  
  
"It's okay, sis. I'm sure granny will be just fine."  
mystery attempted to comfort her.  
  
"YOU DIDN'T SEE IT! YOU DIDN'T SEE WHAT I DID TO HER HAND! YOU DON'T GET IT! YOU DON'T…you didn't see it.." Athena burst into tears. her face was no longer red and her tears were able to fall freely from her blood shot eyes. mystery bent over to hold her sister and it was then that she saw the "change". it began at the roots of her hair and finished at the ends, slowly but noticeably Athena's hair turned red.  
  
"Athena," mystery whispered, putting her arm around her sister's shoulders and trying to not to notice the freakishly changed scalp "let's go back inside…"  
  
***  
  
"No." Athena wailed wrenching from her sister's grasp.   
  
"I,I can't go back not after..." she broke off.  
  
"Hey whoa hold on! You're not going to go back home ever! Can I have your room."  
  
"You don't live here."  
  
"So. I can use it for storage."  
  
"I'm gonna go home sometime, just not now!"  
  
"Oh, where you gonna go?"  
  
"I dunno. Somewhere far. Maybe Florida. I always wanted to go to Florida."  
  
"Florida! Cool! I wanna come!"  



End file.
